Leading in Uncertain Times

Deidre Le Fevre

Education today faces enduring, complex challenges that demand adaptive and innovative leadership. Questions like “How do people learn?”, “What makes a good leader?”, and “How can leaders promote equity?” are central to shaping future-ready educational leaders. Effective educational leadership is essential for navigating the rapidly changing, uncertain, and contested contexts in which educators work. Indeed, it is important that leaders are open to critical and urgent conversations about what practices are effective and what we should strive for.

While these conversations don’t offer easy answers they can promote essential reflection and collaboration among educators, policymakers, and school communities. The challenges we face in education today are adaptive—they lack clear solutions and require experimentation, courage, and openness to resolve. This article provides some provocations for how leaders can engage in conversations that address these adaptive challenges and foster equitable, responsive, and future-focused education.